Wednesday, October 08, 2008

the amusing parts of last week

first let me just say: root canal = peice of cake! i love my dentist. if you need a dentist in oakland, i highly suggest kenneth louie. the root canal was so awesome i fell asleep (i just had localized anesthetics) during it and think i woke myself up snoring as he was poking needles in my mouth. then my mouth was numb for a bit, but that was it.

so michiko and i had a date to make sure i got some donuts and beer. except it was actually chocolate cake and a cocktail, but same difference. i love it when she is unemployed!

so i realized i was big debbie downer in my nationals post and forgot to mention some of the funny highlights of the trip:

tuesday morning. car trip down = i sat awkwardly in the back seat because gio was PMSing.

tuesday afternoon. quick track workout, nothing of note.

ride to passedena from track. candy feed. dude eating big bag of candy in traffic. megan points out this phenomenon, gio rolls up to minivan, i roll down window and ask for some candy. we get some gumballs! don't ever say LA traffic sucks.

pete shows up tuesday night. 5 hours from marin. i drove with him to track almost everyday cause a) he has a race car, and b) he has awesome heated seats, which meant i didn't need to warmup as much before racing.

wednesday i go to track and watch some racing. (no races for me that day) coolest part? i saw taylor phinney doing tai chi right before his races. i don't know why it was so funny, but it just was.

then johnny the moto driver asked me how fast i wanted him to drive the moto during the keirin. it is always good to get in good with the moto driver.

then we spotted floyd landis sitting away from everyone. johnny said he'd introduce megan and me.

so we got our picture taken with floyd and a funny candid shot. i didn't care so much to ask floyd many questions about his life. if i really cared, i would have read his book. so instead i rattled on and on to him about my blog, measuring my quads, and my attempts to get michael ball to make keirin cut jeans. he was very nice and seemed amused and said he would check out my blog...yeah, i've heard that one before....

so that night we ate some lasagna i had made. gio really liked the lasagna. i mean, really liked it. so much so that pete, megan, and i were all very uncomfortable at the dinner table and wanted to excuse ourselves to leave him alone with the ricotta cheese. italians.

brian and steve showed up wednesday night. thus, i devised a friendly bet....brian and steve were shacking up, and megan and i were shacking up. (gio and pete were on the air mattresses). the bet was as follows: whoever did the best on the days events would win the bed for that night. highest place wins; partner freerides. this actually worked out well for me, cause megan is a badass and i was planning on free riding. pelaez was really into the bet, and we proceeded to shit talk about it before every race for the rest of the week. as steve said: "okay, whatever motivates you beth!"

thursday, like i said in my previous post i did some racing, 500m & scratch qualifiers. seeing shelley win the scratch race was the coolest thing ever. megan got second in team pursuit, so we won the bed. and so began the quoting of talladega nights. shake 'n bake!

friday we went to breakfast at pie 'n burger. gio and brian had pie. i did not, although it did look good.

at breakfast, pelaez told us about his lifting routine.... "i bench the bar... actually, just benching just the bar is actually harder... ya know, because of concentric muscle motion..." for awhile gio, pete, brian, and i just looked at him...wondering if he was serious. then we realized how full of it that dude is and proceeded to make fun of his weak "45 lb bar" self.

did a lot of racing friday night...keirins, scratch races. my first keirin round i ended up winning cause everyone pretty much crashed or got relegated. it was just like you-tube.

pete and i left the track together and pete told me how brian and steve are just like the odd couple. that night we had dinner and brian insisted on getting a pint of gelato so he could do well in the points race. megan got 5th in her pursuit, so we won the bed that night. podium=totally bed worthy.

saturday i found another reason to hate sarah palin. that bitch was speaking at the home depot soccer stadium, so we had to park far away and carry our shit far into the building. brian earned a few points in my book cause -- cause he totally flipped her off right as she was looking at him. apparently roman didn't think this was so appropriate, but that is totally why roman went to law school, and why brian is totally punk rock.

saturday was a short day for me with my 200m. i went to the stands to watch, cause you get a better view. megan wasn't racing and i definitely didn't win the bed for us, but steve was flying out that night, so they let us have it.

sunday we went back to pie 'n burger for breakfast, but no pie for me. maybe that was my problem. i met jennie reed and sarah hammer and got some autographs on a t-shirt with some cheesy quotes.

the car ride home was awesome. megan told some good jokes to some guys working at the rest stop. actually, she laughed at anything i said, even though it wasn't funny. that really boosted my self-esteem. then i realized we only had 1 hour left of our car trip, and i had neglected to play all of my awesome road trip CDs i had brought along... so i quickly did some DJing of some sweet en vogue & salt 'n pepper to conclude our trip.

there are likely other funny things i missed, but that was a quick re-cap. i think we should all take up tai chi.

oh, and for for my memory books, here are my pictures on cyclingnews. thanks rob for photoing me to make me feel important. and for taking pictures of me before i was off the back.

Michiko did it (see earlier blog post about driving to the top of a hill to provide Beth's fuel-beer and chocolate donuts for the rest of the training session). Michiko doesn't follow trends, she makes them.

Yes, the world needs measurements so that Michiko can resume a normal cycle.